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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25287037">the few things that we know to be predictable</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/astrosaur/pseuds/astrosaur'>astrosaur</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>I wonder what happened in all those other timelines [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(only in some timelines!), Canonical Character Death, Eddie Kaspbrak Lives, Fix-It, M/M, Mild Gore, Stanley Uris Lives, but make it the Community episode about multiverses, cherry-picking IT canons, in the end we all know that</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 10:08:15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>9,868</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25287037</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/astrosaur/pseuds/astrosaur</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>The butterfly effect is the idea that a small difference at the initial stage of an event can have a large or unpredictable influence on the outcome.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>.</p><p>Five timelines in which Mike doesn't call Bill first, and one where he sort of does.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Mike Hanlon &amp; Everyone</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>I wonder what happened in all those other timelines [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1846828</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>62</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>the few things that we know to be predictable</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Premise and title are clumsily borrowed from the Community episode, Remedial Chaos Theory.</p><p>Jumble of IT canons, but a couple of big ones in particular: the fic follows book canon that Eddie sticks his arm in Its mouth in the final fight (instead of getting impaled), and we're going with movie canon that Bev saw the deadlights when they were kids.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Bill Denbrough. Eddie Kaspbrak. Ben Hanscom. Beverly Rogan. Richie Tozier. Stan Uris.</em>
</p><p>Mike stares at their names until he’s second-guessing his spelling.</p><p>“You’re being ridiculous,” he informs himself.</p><p>He’s got six calls to make. He isn’t doing himself any favors by stalling.</p><p>It doesn’t matter who he calls first. He can pick one of them at random and it won’t change the outcome.</p><p>He averts his eyes from the notepad that lists his friends’ names and phone numbers. He holds his hand unseeingly above the paper, index finger outstretched. <strong><em>He lets it descend …</em></strong></p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <strong>
    <em>And it lands on Eddie Kaspbrak.</em>
  </strong>
</p><p>“Edward Kaspbrak speaking.”</p><p>“Eddie, it’s Mike. From Derry.”</p><p>“I’m sorry, our company doesn’t operate in Maine. We only service New York.” Eddie’s not sure how, but he already knows that this Mike person isn’t calling for a quote. His grip on the driver’s wheel had started to tremble as soon as he heard the other man’s voice.</p><p>“You don’t remember me, do you?” Mike’s question is less accusatory than it is resigned. “You don’t remember much about Derry.”</p><p>“How did…”</p><p>Mike jumps on his best chance at jogging Eddie’s memory. “Do you remember Bill Denbrough? He was your best friend when we were kids. Big Bill. He had a speech disorder. You used to fix Silver for him—his bike. You and Richie would ride double on Silver sometimes.”</p><p><em>Hi-yo Silver, away! </em>claws into the surface of Eddie’s mind.</p><p>“Richie Tozier was your other best friend. Trashmouth. He had these huge glasses.” Mike’s sober tone breaks, adding, “And frankly, an even bigger mouth.”</p><p>
  <em>Eds Gets Off A Good One!</em>
</p><p>“Bill. Richie.” Eddie’s lips ease around the shape of their names, his muscle memory uncanny.</p><p>“There was Bev, Ben, and Stan. And me. The seven of us made a promise to come back to Derry if It were to ever come back.” Mike braces himself for the both of them. “It’s back, Eddie.”</p><p>The veil in Eddie’s mind pulls back a fraction, flashing glimpses of what lurks behind. Severe teeth. A dilapidated tongue. An enlarged eyeball gushing with pus. Eddie pops his dashboard open, fiddling for his aspirator. He triggers it and sucks in everything it has to give. “Are you in Derry now?”</p><p>“I never left. Someone had to stay.”</p><p>“But…” A pang of regret enters Eddie, but he’s not sure who it’s for. “Mike. Why didn’t you call us earlier?”</p><p>Mike doesn’t answer right away. “I started to suspect that I had to call you, but I couldn’t drag you guys back until I was absolutely sure.”</p><p>“Mike,” Eddie says again, reacquainting himself with the familiarity of it. “The others are coming back, then?”</p><p>“I think so,” Mike replies. “I haven’t spoken to them yet. You’re the first one I called.”</p><p>The image in Eddie’s head shifts. Now, it’s a straight set of teeth, pearl-white in stark contrast to the boy’s complexion. A smile that hardly ever grew weary, though it had every right to. “Let me help,” he blurts out.</p><p>“You want to help call the others? Are you sure?”</p><p>“You’ve held onto this on your own long enough.” It’s not quite an apology, and it won’t make up for what Mike’s sacrificed, but it’s a start. “Send me their numbers.”</p><p>Mike mulls it over. “I’ll leave Bill, Richie, and Bev to you.” Before that, he can’t help but seek verbal assurance. “Eddie, will you come back?”</p><p>The answer is in Eddie’s throat before he thinks it through, though it takes a couple of nudges to set it free.</p><p>With a single word, he renews his promise.</p><p>.</p><p>“Now?! Seriously? You could’ve called this morning, or an hour ago, or five minutes ago, but you choose now of all times, to stand between me and a whole-ass civilization of Sour Patch Kids?”</p><p>The peaks and valleys of the melodic rant send a tingle racing down Eddie’s spine. “Is this Richie Tozier?”</p><p>“…Who is this?”</p><p>“Eddie Kaspbrak. I got your number from Mike Hanlon.”</p><p>Richie parrots their names back to Eddie, sounding dazed. On the third repetition, he stops abruptly. Eddie hears remote, telltale retching noises at the other end of the line. He dry heaves in both sympathy and disgust.</p><p>Afterwards, Richie resumes with a conversational, “Oh hey, what’s up?”</p><p>Eddie passes Mike’s spiel along to Richie, coloring it in with necessary retorts whenever Richie attempts to derail him. It drowns him in disconcerting levels of thrill, not unlike stumbling into an activity and finding that you have a natural aptitude for it.</p><p>As they talk, Eddie conjures up disembodied ideas that make up Richie Tozer. He tries to assemble them into a coherent sum. He ages some parts up—peppers thicker stubble around a sprawling grin, crinkles the skin around Blue Lagoon eyes.</p><p>“So, let’s see if I got this right,” Richie says. “Mike Hanlon, this scrapbooking geek we knew when we were kids, tracked us down without moving a single toe out of Fuckall, Maine. He found my number, which only my agent, my mother, and my sponsor are privy to… and this one insatiable piece from the other night.”</p><p>Eddie weathers another wave of nausea. “Did you have a point?”</p><p>“My point is, my number is highly classified. Only deployed for the purposes of emergencies, booty calls, and relaying how many minutes I’ve missed my call time by. But Hanlon dug it out, handed it over to you willy-nilly to give me a secondhand message.”</p><p>“Uh-huh.”</p><p>“And that message is, once upon a time, I almost died by the hand of a supernatural monster on a murder spree, and I lived to forget about it. Would I like to give It another chance to finish the job? Shall I reunite with the six other fools I was in some sort of cult with, so that we may fulfill our collective death wish?”</p><p>“That’s not quite how Mike put it.”</p><p>“Okay, cool. At least he was polite enough to merely imply our untimely demise.”</p><p>“What are you thinking?” Eddie recognizes a nostalgia in seeking the privilege of Richie’s thoughts, wanting to try and make sense of them.</p><p>“I’m brainstorming the name of our reunion tour. I’m leaning towards ‘Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies’.”</p><p>“That’s not funny.” Eddie semi-successfully smothers evidence of his inconvenient amusement. “And that is not what you’re thinking.”</p><p>“You don’t like it? Too on the nose?”</p><p>“Fine, don’t tell me. I’ll guess,” Eddie says. “You’re thinking… You’re thinking we’re going to get rid of It once and for all.”</p><p>“Good thing Hanlon needs clown-killers and not mind-readers.” Richie pauses. “You’ll be there, right? We can’t call it ‘Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies’ if we’re missing the ‘Everyone’ part.”</p><p>“We’re not calling it that. And yes, I’m coming. Did you not hear me say ‘we’?”</p><p>“Goddamn, fuck me for checking!” Richie’s laughter is egregiously disarming. “You could’ve turned into a real hoity-toity type that says ‘we’ when he means ‘you’. I mean, it’s been years. What’s my assurance that you’re still my Eds?”</p><p>
  <em>Eds.</em>
</p><p>Eddie can’t speak. <em>My Eds.</em> Can’t think. <em>Still my Eds . . .</em></p><p>“In fact, how do I know it’s you?” Richie barrels on. “Until I can verify with my own legally blind eyes, I can’t be sure that you aren’t some obsessed stalker luring me into your underground fuck dungeon.”</p><p>Rather than attempt to jumpstart his brain into coming up with a clever response, Eddie abruptly hangs up. He waits a moment before pulling up FaceTime.</p><p>It rings for less than a second before Eddie’s screen fills with another man’s face. The man’s hair is unkempt in an almost purposeful way, framing an imposing forehead. Behind (disappointingly?) nondescript glasses, a pair of eyes swell like thunderclouds, voltaic and striking.</p><p>This man doesn’t seamlessly match the admittedly shaky image Eddie has of a boy that went by the same name. Still, he knows—this is his Richie.</p><p>“Hi.”</p><p>Eddie startles from his reverie. “Hi.”</p><p>Richie says it again for good measure, beaming through it. It makes Eddie want to ask, <em>well? Am I still your Eds?</em></p><p>And that… is not a question that a married man should be asking. It doesn’t matter that he never quite learned to love his spouse the way that he’s meant to. Or that talking to Richie is exposing the truth about the last twenty years of Eddie’s life—that he hasn’t been living it so much as <em>postponing</em> it.</p><p>It’s unnerving, not least because Eddie is having this revelation because of a man that he’s still in the process of unforgetting. Not to mention, he has no idea what the intervening years could have done to the person he once knew.</p><p>Yet, as incomplete as his memories are, and as distant as their shared history seems, there’s no denying what’s been ignited in Eddie. Even without defining the feeling itself, its magnitude demands attention, loud and immutable. Powerful.</p><p>It might work to Eddie’s advantage. He can use a boost in strength.</p><p>He’ll need every ounce of it when he tells Myra that he has to leave.</p><p>.</p><p>.</p><p>.</p><p>Suspended above them, Richie’s body careens precariously. His lips don’t move, but Eddie hears him. Richie’s distinct timbre permeates his head:<em> somebody, help me!</em></p><p>Eddie moves without a second thought. He spears his arm into Its mouth and triggers his aspirator (<em>“this is battery acid, fucknuts!”</em>) until It is screeching loud enough to etch fissures into the walls.</p><p>Eddie shoves his hand deeper into Its throat, spraying down Its gullet. For one hysteric moment, he believes he’s going to do it. He’s going to kill It with the very same tool he convinced himself was a remedy. The placebo effect is repurposed so that his inhaler is no longer an amulet—now, it’s a weapon.</p><p>Richie’s body rattles weightlessly until it shakes free of Its hold and is ceded to gravity’s.</p><p>“Richie!” Ben slides into position to break Richie’s fall. They hit the ground with a resounding thump, hollering in unison.</p><p>They drown out Eddie’s cry of agony as It clamps down on his arm, teeth lancing through bone and muscle.</p><p>As It staggers off in retreat, Eddie hobbles and lands hard on his rear. He hisses, gripping the source of the pain. His grows lightheaded when his hand only finds the beginning of a limb.</p><p>From farther away, Bill’s voice reverberates. “Follow It! It’s not dead yet!”</p><p>Ben, barely upright, yells unintelligible encouragement. Beverly supports Ben’s weight as she drags them onward. Mike picks himself up after being stunned by loose debris, scrambling to join the chase. None of them see Eddie’s current condition.</p><p>“What the fuck—<em>your arm</em>—guys, we have to help Eddie!” Richie shrills, but the others have drifted too far to hear him.</p><p>Eddie wonders why Richie isn’t listening to Bill. They always listen to Bill.</p><p>“Fuck, fuck, <em>fuck</em>. Hang in there. Stay with me,” Richie begs. He whips off his jacket, using it to stave off the bleeding.</p><p>Eddie briefly thinks that Richie isn’t doing it right. But it’s too taxing to figure out what Richie’s doing wrong, on top of discerning everything else he needs to say. “Rich…”</p><p>The shadows are looming. Sounds blur and wane.</p><p>“Yeah?”</p><p>At least Richie and the others will make it out of here. That’s enough for him.</p><p>“What is it, Eds?” Richie urges.</p><p>But if Eddie had more time, he could’ve… Well. He would have…</p><p>“You know I…” he tries.</p><p>If only they had more time… they might have……</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <strong>
    <em>Mike lets his index finger descend …</em>
  </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>
    <em>And it lands on Beverly Rogan.</em>
  </strong>
</p><p>Beverly reels back as if she’d been slapped. She almost wishes that was the case. She could simply wait for the bruises to fade, and none of her friends would have to die.</p><p>She latches on to that thought, as sudden and errant as it had been. “Have you called…” she grapples for a name. Luckily, Mike called her early enough, before she got home. There’s no one to overhear her in her office. “What was his name? He was neat. Precise.”</p><p>“Eddie?” Mike volunteers.</p><p>“Eddie.” She thinks of wide eyes like day-old bruises, eyes that looked hurt when they weren’t smiling. <em>Eddie.</em> “No, someone else. He… he was very practical. Seemed older than he was.”</p><p>“Stan?”</p><p>“Stan!” Beverly nearly shouts with the rightness of it. “Have you talked to him?”</p><p>“No, you’re the first one I called.”</p><p>Beverly deliberates. Then, “Don’t call him.”</p><p>“What?” For all the catastrophizing Mike has done, he hadn’t predicted this reaction. “Why?”</p><p>Beverly’s only half-certain, herself. “We went down to the sewers when we were kids. Right? Something happened to me while we were down there.”</p><p>Mike remembers her levitating, pupils whited out. “You were caught in… yes.”</p><p>“I have dreams sometimes. Of a boy—a man. I couldn’t ever put a name to him, but when I see him…” Her breath tremors. She doesn’t close her eyes, knowing what’s waiting for her in the dark. “On those nights, I wake up crying.”</p><p>“Bev…”</p><p>“I have nightmares about the others, too. I think it’s you guys. Things don’t always end the same, but this— With Stan, I keep seeing it. It happens again and again.”</p><p>“You think something will happen to Stan if I call him.” Mike is well-acquainted with the possibility that he’s leading them to their doom.</p><p>“I don’t know,” Beverly says honestly. “I can’t be sure what the dreams mean. What do you think?”</p><p>Mike has to take Beverly’s apprehension to heart. Beverly, with her valiant determination and fierce loyalty, both virtues strong enough to be on the verge of recklessness.</p><p>And yet… “It’s hard to imagine pulling it off with one of us missing.”</p><p>“I can’t tell you what to do.” Beverly hesitates. It’s just not fair that Mike’s got to take this upon himself, too, after all that he’s already shouldered. “But I will if you let me.”</p><p>“Your turn to put yourself in Big Bill’s shoes?”</p><p>Beverly cracks a smile. “It’s still foggy for me, but I can tell you without having to guess that you’re too smart to be subbing for Bill.”</p><p>Mike disagrees but he appreciates the vote of confidence. “My college years would beg to disagree.”</p><p>“I would’ve loved to know college Mike,” she says wistfully.</p><p>“Honestly, I haven’t changed that much. I’ve eked out a rudimentary level of self-awareness since then, but that’s about it.”</p><p>“I hear you.” Beverly chuckles. “Well, you should know that current me is exactly Bill levels of dumb.”</p><p>.</p><p>.</p><p>.</p><p>A little over one week later, Beverly calls Stan.</p><p>“I just remembered you guys. I didn’t even get to see him.”</p><p>“I’m so sorry, Stan.”</p><p>“Don’t be,” Stan says after a while. “I get why you made that choice.”</p><p>“Mike wanted to call you. I’m the one who—” Beverly cuts herself off with a sigh. “It’s not that I thought we didn’t needed you. And I wish I could explain it, but…” The dreams have stopped, but the afterimage of blood pluming in bathtub water remains. “But please believe me when I say I would’ve wanted you there.”</p><p>“Will I see you all? At Eddie’s…” Stan trails off.</p><p>“Not Bill. Eddie’s wife doesn’t want him to come. He was the one who called her to tell her the news. She blames him for what happened.”</p><p>“Fuck.”</p><p>She privately agrees. “Ben, Mike, and I will be there, though.”</p><p>“What about Richie?”</p><p>Beverly has no idea. No one’s had any luck reaching him. She settles on, “I hope he’ll be able to make it.”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <strong>
    <em>Mike lets his index finger descend …</em>
  </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>
    <em>And it lands on Richie Tozier.</em>
  </strong>
</p><p>“Dick’s Dildo Delivery, we stuff boxes big and small.”</p><p>Mike doesn’t know what he expected, but at least he can be certain that he’s got the right number. On his notepad, next to Richie’s name, he scribbles: <em>Pay Robin the other 50%</em>.</p><p>“Richie? It’s Mike, from Derry.”</p><p>Richie opens his mouth to say hi to Mike Fromderry. He gets out a “Huh—” before he starts to hurl.</p><p>Savage thumps revolt inside Richie’s ribcage. The name and the voice on the other line teeter on the edge of familiar. “Let’s try this again. Hey Mike. Who are you and how the fuck did you get my number?”</p><p>“Doesn’t matter.” Mike will take the knowledge of Richie’s “discreet” hookup all the way to the grave. “You need to come back to Derry.”</p><p>“You want me to—” Richie huffs out a laugh. “Yeah, no fucking thanks. I’m in the middle of a three-month sold-out tour. I have neither the time nor desire to return to that cesspool of lob<em>stah</em>-fucking bigots to—what <em>do</em> you want? Want me to spread the word that a guy like yours truly made it out of that infernal piss-bucket town in one piece?”</p><p>“We didn’t take care of It.” Mike takes advantage of Richie’s stunned silence and explains, as much as he can, an oath made nearly thirty summers ago.</p><p>“‘It.’” Richie shudders as he utters the two-letter word. The closer he gets to placing ‘Derry’ and ‘It’ together, the more visceral his body’s reaction gets. “So what you’re saying is…”</p><p>Mike suspects that Richie already worked out the answer to that. “We have to face It again.”</p><p>Before he knows it, Richie’s asking where and when Mike’s expecting them. He channels the airy bluster of the Ghostbusters’ Janine Melnitz while penciling Derry into his schedule and defying the last of his survival instincts.</p><p>“Jade of the Orient,” says Mike. “Tomorrow night.”</p><p>“Tomorrow? Fuck no, I just had Chinese. And none of that General Tso’s shit that’s the height of culture in rural Maine.”</p><p>“Wow. Apologies for the dearth of small-town Michelin star restaurants,” Mike deadpans. “Will you come anyway? We have a reservation. Eight PM.”</p><p>“What, they make you take a blood oath to keep that appointment, too?” scoffs Richie. “Come on, let me have this one thing. People on death row are given more mercies than Jade of the fucking Orient. That’s what this is, by the way—you’re practically lining us up for execution.”</p><p>Mike grits his teeth. “Alright, alright. Be grateful I called you first, otherwise I wouldn’t bother indulging the demands of another Hollywood narcissist with delusions of grandeur.” In truth, he isn’t mad. He barely musters annoyance. If anything, he’s relieved that their meeting place is the only thing Richie’s fussing over.</p><p>.</p><p>Richie generally isn’t in the habit of arriving early to events. But shards of his past have been blitzing him ever since he arrived in Maine, and they make him restless.</p><p>Derry reeks of things left unfulfilled. The undercurrent of terror running right beneath the grass and asphalt is a white noise hum that he can almost ignore.</p><p>He ends up heading to Bassey Park an hour before their designated meeting time. It’s upsettingly nostalgic strolling along the largely preserved park—that’s some serious Stockholm syndrome bullshit. But that’s what happens when the source of your untreated PTSD has the same backdrop as the best memories you’ve ever created.</p><p>He spots the cafe that’s about to serve as their rendezvous point. He forgoes it, instead moseying over to the old ice cream place he used to frequent.</p><p>The store’s signage hasn’t been updated. When he steps through its doors, he discovers that the inside is similarly unchanged. He’s convinced that Derry is a mummified creature, all ancient bones and poisoned blood.</p><p>Ahead of Richie, a man stands at an absurdly respectable distance from the ice cream display.</p><p>“Eddie?” Richie utters his name like an accusation, because it is undeniably <em>his</em> fault that there’s no longer enough air in the room.</p><p>“Richie.” Eddie sounds as helpless as Richie feels.</p><p>They stare at each other, scanning. Cataloguing every inch that’s visible and tracing whatever isn’t. Neither moves until Richie jerks his head towards the counter. “You getting anything?”</p><p>Eddie wrinkles his nose. “We’re about to eat dinner. Besides, I’m lactose intolerant.”</p><p>“And what, you thought you’d get almond milk substitute in backwoods Maine?” Richie walks up to the teenager behind the counter, offering her a commiserating look. “I grew up here, you get used to people shitting on this town.”</p><p>“I take tips in cash or credit,” she says.</p><p>Richie opts for a simple soft serve cone, seeking comfort over anything else. Slightly claustrophobic, he ushers Eddie out the door as soon as he’s done paying for his treat, doubling its price in tips for the salesperson’s troubles.</p><p>“Why were you even in there if you weren’t going to buy anything?” Richie asks.</p><p>“I wanted to see it, I guess. I got here early and I started wandering around.”</p><p>Richie gobbles his pre-dinner dessert with little finesse. “Wait a minute, you’re not lactose intolerant. You’d buy ice cream with me every week. Shit, didn’t my dad—yeah, Went totally bought you a sundae after he removed your wisdom teeth. Never mind that he didn’t do it for <em>his own son</em> ‘cause ‘boys whose teeth are seventy-five percent dental filling’ aren’t afforded the same privilege.”</p><p>Eddie’s eyebrows meet. He opens his mouth to argue, then shuts it. “Lactose intolerance can develop as you get older.” He says it with a poor approximation of his usual high-school-debater diction. “But yeah. Your dad was really nice to me. Your mom, too.”</p><p>“They loved you more than me.” Richie panics when he hears the unintended implication of his phrasing, rushing to fix it. “I mean, they loved you more than they loved me, not more than I loved—” He gives up on that one altogether.</p><p>Eddie generously sidesteps the abyssal canyon that Richie dug himself into. “We spent our last day together in this park. Remember? The day before you left. It was you, me, Ben and Mike.”</p><p>“Ben left first so he could help make dinner for his mom. Then Mike had to go because…”</p><p>“Because he had chores the next day, at dawn.” Eddie glances up, surveying the dimming sky.</p><p>Richie would look up, too, but his eyes refuse to abandon Eddie’s profile. He looks so much like the boy that stargazed with Richie on the bed of his Jeep. The boy that marveled at the vastness of the world, enthralled by the thought that there’s so much more to it than the streets they grew up on.</p><p>“You don’t see stars in New York,” Eddie muses like he’s coming out of a dream.</p><p>“Can’t see them in LA, either. Not underneath all the botox.”</p><p>“Not funny,” Eddie assesses mildly. “I haven’t looked up at the sky in so long.” He lowers his gaze to the general vicinity just above Richie’s shoulder. “There’s so much I didn’t know I missed.”</p><p>Richie clears his throat. “Taking a bold stance against light pollution? Are you about to go full Lorax and start speaking for the trees? You’ve got his height, but the lack of bushy yellow facial hair leaves much to be desired.”</p><p>Eddie visibly tries to frown but he ends up doing the opposite. “You haven’t changed one fucking bit.”</p><p>“So cute when you pretend to be disappointed.”</p><p>Eddie, true to form, takes Richie by surprise. He reaches up and tugs their bodies tight against one another, doing his level best to encompass Richie. Flush together from chest to hip, limbs insinuated wherever there’s space to fill.</p><p>Richie read somewhere that humans smell their best at infanthood, then it’s a steady decline from there. Eddie did not get that memo—his scent is precisely as alluring as ever. He gives off a sea salt honey musk that Richie wants to sop up through his mouth. Richie wants the source of it in fleshy chunks between his teeth.</p><p>And yeah, he’s precisely as awkward and creepy as ever.</p><p>Recovered footage in Richie’s mind roars into activity. Suddenly, he’s in ten places at once.</p><p>He’s back in the sewers, raving about toughening Eddie up after the latter trounced Its eye. He’s in Eddie’s room, getting fresh wounds attended to while he tries to break Eddie’s laser-focused concentration. He’s right here in this park, but it’s twenty years ago, huddled in the back of his pickup truck while Eddie laments in earnest that Derry’s going to be so much worse without Richie in it.</p><p>Eddie feels simultaneously too small and too large in Richie’s arms. Richie tries to adjust his hold, not wanting to crush Eddie with the bone-shattering force of his emotions. Eddie only holds on tighter.</p><p>Richie cups the back of Eddie’s head, following its shape with his palm. He nuzzles into Eddie’s hair, pursing his lips against it. He hopes Eddie doesn’t correctly translate it as a kiss.</p><p>“Do you think we can do this?” Eddie asks into Richie’s clavicle.</p><p>Richie’s not sure what he’s asking—if they can hold each other like this in plain view of Derry locals, or if they’re capable of killing Pennywise for good. Bleak odds, either way. “So, I can give you the answer that’ll jinx us, or I can give you the one that’ll piss you off. Not very sporting of you to set a trap like this, Eds.”</p><p>Eddie lifts his head to peer up at Richie. Richie can feel Eddie’s chest thundering against his midriff. Eddie undoubtedly feels Richie’s syncopating to the same beat. “I’m not—”</p><p>“Richie? Eddie?”</p><p>Richie is both relieved and disappointed at the abrupt introduction of a third party, but these feelings are overshadowed by the delight at seeing Mike bounding up to them.</p><p>Mike throws his arms around Eddie and Richie. “It’s so good to see you.”</p><p>“Mike.” Eddie’s dimples dig grooves into his cheeks. “How’ve you been?”</p><p>Mike shrugs. “Can’t complain,” he fibs. He glances between the two of them, appraising. “Sorry if I interrupted.”</p><p>“No, no, you’re—”</p><p>“I’ll be at the cafe, you two pop in whenever you’re ready.”</p><p>“What are you talking about?” Richie interjects. “Don’t you want to get in on this? I won’t kink-shame if you just want to watch, even though that’d be such a waste of your physique. Seriously, you look like you were genetically engineered to star in farm boy porn. Fucking obnoxious.”</p><p>“You’d know, wouldn’t you?” Mike returns. “As the keeper of all things obnoxious.”</p><p>Richie snorts. <em>Well-played, Mikey. You almost had me at the first half.</em> He catches Eddie’s eye—tries to convey the message of <em>hold that thought</em> without putting it into words.</p><p>.</p><p>.</p><p>.</p><p>
  <em>“Follow It! It’s not dead yet!”</em>
</p><p>Richie can’t tell where Bill’s voice is coming from, or who owns the body wriggling out from underneath him. He blinks his eyes to clear the afterimage of glaring light, bleary gaze frantically seeking out—</p><p>Eddie is curled into himself on the ground, laying on a growing pool of his own—</p><p>Richie screws his eyes shut before reopening them, but they’re still absolute shit and they’re getting this <em>all wrong</em>.</p><p>His brain berates the nonsensical image in front of him, flooding with a litany of denials. <em>No</em>. Eddie’s supposed to be okay, he’s supposed to make it out of this, he’s supposed to hear what he means to Richie. <em>No, no, no, no, </em>no<em>.</em></p><p>Oblivious to Eddie’s illogically prone body, Beverly and Ben are stumbling over each other’s feet to race after Bill, Mike not far behind them.</p><p>They always listen to Bill.</p><p>Richie grabs Mike’s wrist before he can get too far. “Eddie needs help. Or do you want another dead body to add to your scrapbook?”</p><p>Mike bristles disbelievingly but bites back a retaliation. Anything he would say wouldn’t have reached Richie, judging by the manic undercurrent of his glare. When Mike notices Eddie, his indignation vanishes. “Oh my god, Eddie!”</p><p>Mike drops to a squat and loops an arm below Eddie’s knees. Together, Mike and Richie lift Eddie, carrying his battered body between them.</p><p>Richie zeroes in on Eddie’s slack face. “Hey. Hey, you’re not peace-ing out now, not after—” He chokes. “Stay with me, you idiot, I just got you back.”</p><p>Mike’s thoughts echo the sentiment. He means it in a different way than Richie does, but he’s no less desperate. <em>Stay with us. I just got you back.</em></p><p>“What, no snappy comeback? You forget that, too? It’s what you do. Gotta fight me every step of the way, don’tcha, Eds?” Richie pauses. “See, this is where you say you hate that name.”</p><p>Eddie finally answers. “Sounds like you already know.”</p><p>“Yeah, I know what you’d have us believe. It’s as credible as you claiming to be 5’9.” Richie is so depleted that even his usual pointless jokes feel out of reach.</p><p>When Richie mumbles a soft “’msorry”, it takes Mike a second to catch on that it’s directed at him.</p><p>“It’s okay.” Mike adds, “We’ll be okay. We’ve made it this far. We’re not giving up now.”</p><p>Steps away from Bill, Bev and Ben, Mike helps Richie lay Eddie down. Mike glances at the trio crowding Its weakened form—weakened, but still fighting.</p><p>“Shit.” Mike springs back up to his feet. “Stay here,” he tells Richie unnecessarily.</p><p>“Heard that? The man with the plan said we’re not giving up.” Richie’s breath snags in his lungs as Eddie’s eyelids droop. “You’re picking a hell of a time to sleep, Eds.”</p><p>“…know I…”</p><p>Richie leans in closer to hear him. “What?”</p><p>“…love…” rasps Eddie, struggling to get above an exhale.</p><p>“Eds?” Richie prods, beseeching. “Eds, I—I need you to make it out of here. Please. Okay?” His lips meet Eddie’s damp forehead. His skin is colder than the bitter air around them. “Eddie?”</p><p>Distantly, Richie hears three voices call out in unison. He’s too distraught to wonder why they’re yelling and why there wasn’t a fourth.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <strong>
    <em>And it lands on Ben Hanscom.</em>
  </strong>
</p><p>“I don’t know how much the others will remember. I haven’t talked to anyone else yet. You’re the first one I called.”</p><p>“I am?” Ben’s memories are still dusting off the cobwebs, but he can’t fathom being the first on anyone’s list. “So, only you and I know about this right now.”</p><p>“That’s right,” Mike confirms. “I’ll call them right after. Bill and Beverly and the rest.”</p><p>“Beverly,” Ben repeats, getting caught on her name. “Do you know anything about her now? About any of them? Like, are they all married with kids?”</p><p>“No kids. Richie’s not married.”</p><p>“Everyone else is,” Ben surmises. “What’s Richie up to now?”</p><p>“He’s some sort of celebrity that people laugh at. I hesitate to say comedian.”</p><p>It teases a snicker out of Ben. “That’s what he wanted to do, isn’t it? He’s living his dreams,” he paraphrases. “Everyone’s… got something to lose.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Mike says guardedly, unsure what Ben is leading up to.</p><p>“The thing that’s waiting for us—it’s dangerous, isn’t it?”</p><p>Mike considers his next words. Against his better judgment, he goes with, “It’s deadly.”</p><p>“I think we should get the police to handle this.”</p><p>“…I don’t think I have to tell you that you and I have very different experiences with law enforcement.”</p><p>“I’ll be with you. I’ll come to Derry,” Ben cajoles. “I understand why you’d hesitate. I do. But they’re our best bet. They’re armed. Trained.”</p><p>“The only thing the DPD knows how to do is set a curfew,” Mike scoffs. “They won’t even listen. Derry has more missing persons cases than the entire state of Vermont, and that doesn’t strike the Chief of Police as the slightest bit peculiar.” He’s aware that he’s misdirecting his pent-up frustrations, but Ben is due for a bit of disillusionment.</p><p>“I’ll talk to them,” Ben persists. “Let me try. I’ve changed, Mike.” If nothing else, he’s no longer dirt-poor. He learned a while back that authorities respond to that.</p><p>Mike switches tactics. “We should get the others up to speed before we decide for them.”</p><p>“We don’t have to be the first line of defense,” Ben says. “Look, if it were just me, it’d be a different story. You know? If anything were to happen to me, I wouldn’t have a widow or-or a <em>fanbase</em> mourning me—”</p><p>“Ben, what are you saying? We’re not married or famous, so that makes you and I more dispensable?”</p><p>“No! Of course you aren’t dispensable.”</p><p>“But you—”</p><p>“Neither am I,” Ben tacks on quickly. “My point is, we don’t have to put our friends at risk. Right? What do we have to lose by sending in uniformed men first?”</p><p>“I don’t want to dismiss your idea,” Mike says sincerely. “And I understand where you’re coming from, not wanting to get the others involved. Trust me, I get that. But I know this town. It—it has to be us, there’s no way around it.”</p><p>Ben is tempted to relent. Then he thinks about the six faceless people that once held his heart and kept it safe. “Two weeks. That’s all I’m asking.”</p><p>“We don’t have time,” Mike insists. “Maybe that’s on me, maybe I shouldn’t have waited so long, but—”</p><p>“<em>One</em> week. Let’s give Derry police seven days to act.”</p><p>Mike’s sigh holds the weight of a quarter-century burden. “Three days. If they don’t move in three days, we call the others.”</p><p>.</p><p>.</p><p>.</p><p>Mike doesn’t know anyone’s numbers off the top of his head.</p><p>He doesn’t know which hospital Ben is in, or if he’s in a hospital at all. He really hopes Ben’s getting treated.</p><p>He didn’t get a close look at the damage Bowers had done, too preoccupied bashing the top of Bowers’ skull. He barely caught a glimpse of the gash across Ben’s stomach—spilling some substance too solid to just be blood—before the cops shoved him facedown to the floor.</p><p>Mike’s fate is dire in its inevitability.</p><p>He had asked for a lawyer, despite staggering odds that he’d get one with both the resources and the inclination to run a proper investigation. Getting one with the right qualifications is a toss-up in itself, given Maine’s lack of a public defender office. On the other side, ADA Boutillier will prioritize conviction records over justice or truth, especially when the outcome happens to confirm his biases.</p><p>If, by some miracle, a judge doesn’t deny him bail, Mike would be hard-pressed to scrounge the money for it. Early release isn’t a possibility, either, since Maine eliminated parole the very year he was born.</p><p>As he cycles through one barren conclusion after the other, he overhears two cops talk about another body that turned up. They prattle on about what a bloodbath the crime scene was. They ask each other—rhetorically, Mike thinks—what kind of sick motherfucker does that to someone so young.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <strong>
    <em>And it lands on Stan Uris.</em>
  </strong>
</p><p>Mike and Stan talk for upwards of two hours.</p><p>Needless to say, Mike hadn’t planned on staying on the phone that long. But Stan remembers far more than Mike could’ve anticipated. Mike picks up on the reluctance that only becomes more transparent the longer they talk.</p><p>He’s about to botch everything up on the very first call.</p><p>It hardly comes as a surprise. Although he and his friends shared compatible values and sensibilities, Mike can’t expect them to come rushing at his beck-and-call. Mike’s not Bill.</p><p>And neither is Stan. Stan doesn’t have Bill’s outsized burden of obligation. Nor does he have Bev’s ability to supplant her inhibitions. What Stan has is a punishing realism. That goes directly against the probability of Its existence, never mind the probability of annihilating It with their own hands.</p><p>At the end of hour two, all Mike has left is raw honesty to try and get through to Stan. “I wish I were wrong. I honestly wish I threw half my life away out of nothing more than paranoia. I’d rather that my friends just grew up and forgot me, that this town breeds inexplicable violence. No other cosmic reasoning behind it. I honestly wish that.”</p><p>The other line is silent except for faint office chatter. Mike wonders if he should’ve saved Stan for last and waited ‘til the other man was at home.</p><p>“Are you still there?” Mike checks.</p><p>“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I don’t doubt you, Mike.”</p><p>Mike waits.</p><p>“I have doubts about other things,” Stan eventually says.</p><p>“I understand. For what it’s worth, I genuinely believe it has to be the seven of us.”</p><p>“Right.”</p><p>Mike realizes that he’s unlikely to prove anything to Stan. Stan has to work things out on his own.</p><p>So he’s going to let Stan do exactly that.</p><p>“It’s getting late,” he says. “I was really hoping to get in touch with everyone today. Do you mind— Can I ask another favor?”</p><p>.</p><p>Before long, Stan starts to internalize what he’s saying.</p><p>As he hashes out more details with the others, he envisions puzzle pieces slotting into the corresponding spaces made to accommodate them, listens to them snap fittingly in place.</p><p>“We need you to guide us out of there,” he tells Eddie. “Remember how you did it for us last time?”</p><p>“We need you to take stupid risks,” he tells Richie. “You’re going to cause trouble, might as well do it on our behalf.”</p><p>“We need you to keep Bill and Bev and Richie from going off the rails,” he tells Ben. “And we need you to save them when they go ahead and do it anyway.”</p><p>That night, with Patty’s body snug against his spine and her exhales billowing at his nape, Stan doesn’t sleep. Too many variables skitter through his mind. He tightens his grip on Patty’s hand and wills himself to remember that this is the most prosperous permutation.</p><p>The seven of them, together, are the solution.</p><p>.</p><p>.</p><p>.</p><p>Stan should’ve pulled Eddie out of the way. Should’ve told him to run before it was too late.</p><p>In the first place, Stan shouldn’t have called Eddie here, only to let him die.</p><p>His mind clouds, the fog of <em>youdidthis-youdidthis-youdidthis</em> heavy and opaque.</p><p>He barely hears Richie begging Eddie to hang in there, stay with him.</p><p>Stan stumbles backwards, lead in his bones, numbly retreating from them.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <strong>
    <em>Mike lets his index finger descend …</em>
  </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>
    <em>But he draws it back up at the last minute, not letting it land.</em>
  </strong>
</p><p>On second thought, there’s no need to leave one more thing up to chance.</p><p>He has one shot to get them on board. One shot to unearth past horrors they’ve long since buried, and—more crucially—revive the belief that they can confront those horrors one more time. That same unshakable conviction won’t come as easily now that they’re older.</p><p>But then, he realizes something. He knows how to make them believe.</p><p>He knows where he sources his own faith, what’s powered it for twenty-seven years.</p><p>With greater certainty, he unlocks his phone and starts at the top of the list.</p><p>Bill answers with a slightly frantic greeting, clearly in the middle of something.</p><p>Mike doesn’t let it faze him. “It’s Mike.”</p><p>“Mike…?”</p><p>“Mike Hanlon from Derry. Listen, I need you to stay on the line for a minute. We have to connect with the others, too.”</p><p>“Others? Wait, did you say Derry—?”</p><p>Mike doesn’t wait for Bill to finish his epiphany. One by one, he patches them in.</p><p>
  <em>“Edward Kaspbrak speaking.” — “Hanscom Architecture.” — “Hello?” — “Dick’s Dildo Delivery.” — “Eagle Auditors, this is Stanley.”</em>
</p><p>“Eagle Auditors?” Richie mocks before anyone else can get a word in.</p><p>“Dick’s Dildo Delivery?” Eddie interjects, a pitch-perfect mimicry.</p><p>“Is that… Richie and Eddie?” ventures Stan.</p><p>“Richie and Eddie?” Ben repeats. “And—”</p><p>“—Stan?” he and Richie chorus.</p><p>Mike listens to the six of them do an astonished roll call. The overlapping voices tug out parts of themselves that have been lying in wait.</p><p>It’s utter <em>chaos</em>. Mike has to recount their forgotten mission over two other conversations happening simultaneously.</p><p>This might be the worst idea Mike’s ever had.</p><p>Then, Bill cuts through the din. His voice is steady, unencumbered—not that a stutter would’ve made a difference. “We have to make sure It never comes back. It’s up to us. What happened to Georgie… we can’t let it happen again.”</p><p>Ben seconds him as other names come back to them. Betty Ripsom. Eddie Corcoran. Patrick Hockstetter. “It’s up to us,” he echoes.</p><p>Mike is reminded why he’s so grateful for them, years removed from the time they plucked weapons from the earth, slinging them to ward off Mike’s attackers. He’s thankful for Bill’s tireless sense of responsibility, for Ben’s all-encompassing sense of right and wrong.</p><p>The others chime in.</p><p>“Guess someone’s gotta headline this sorry excuse of a reunion tour. Thoughts on tour names? I’m partial to ‘Bev and the Boys Slay a Trump Cosplayer’.”</p><p>“I’ll be there, too. Losers stick together, right?”</p><p>Where would they be without Richie safeguarding their joy? Without Eddie devoting himself to their wellbeing?</p><p>“We made a promise,” Stan assents, if a bit unsurely.</p><p>Unexpectedly, Beverly breaks the chain. “Stan, do you have a bathtub?”</p><p>“I’m sorry, are you choosing this specific moment to exchange bathroom interior design plans?” Richie says.</p><p>Beverly ignores him. “Stan?”</p><p>“Why… Why are you asking?” Stan asks.</p><p>“I don’t understand why, either. It’s awful, and terrifying, and it doesn’t make sense to me.”</p><p>“Bev…” Bill says.</p><p>“But I won’t face it alone. Not anymore. And the fear and confusion—they don’t get to control me.”</p><p>Mike isn’t entirely following what Beverly’s saying. Still, he knows well enough to relish her capacity for empathy, for the kindness she has to spare despite rarely receiving it for herself.</p><p>“It’s okay to be a little scared,” Stan decides. “Fear is the reason we develop protective reflexes. It heightens our senses. Balances things out. You can’t be too careful, but you can’t be careless.”</p><p>“No, you can’t,” Beverly agrees, satisfied.</p><p>Mike’s chest soars, admiring Stan’s methodical mindset.</p><p>He feels a lightness. Not to say that the burden has gotten any lighter—the worst lies ahead of them. But Mike no longer bears the brunt of it on his own.</p><p>“I’ll see you all tomorrow?” his voice lilts with audacious hope. “Jade of the Orient at eight?”</p><p>“I don’t fucking think so,” Richie says. “I just had Chinese for lunch.”</p><p>After one final reaffirmation of their promise, they hang up, one by one. Except for Bill.</p><p>“Thank you for doing this.” Bill knows they owe Mike so much more than a handful of words, but it’s a start.</p><p>“I’m glad I had you on the line. Can’t imagine rallying the troops alone. I’m no Bill Denbrough.”</p><p>“No. Lucky for us. ‘Cause I couldn’t have done what you did, Mike.”</p><p>Warmth overtakes Mike as he hastens to rid Bill of any unwarranted guilt. “Come on, it’s not your fault your family moved.”</p><p>“Did you ever leave Derry?” Bill wonders.</p><p>“A couple of times. Only as far as Bangor,” Mike replies. “There was one time I made it to Connecticut. Hartford.”</p><p>“Yeah? What was in Hartford?”</p><p>“Nothing. It was an experiment. I drove along the I-95 while I recorded myself narrating middle school highlights. I wanted to see what happened to my memories the farther out I went.”</p><p>“So what happened?”</p><p>“I forgot your names about three hundred miles out.” It’s a rough estimate. Mike never recreated the experiment, shaken to his core when he played back his recording. Far too much like listening to himself fast-track through Alzheimer’s.</p><p>Bill exhales through his teeth. “I wish you didn’t have to—” He changes his thought mid-sentence. “What would you do, if you could leave for good?”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“What do you mean ‘what’? Did I stutter?”</p><p>Mike lets out a bark of laughter before he sobers. “I don’t think about it. It doesn’t matter.”</p><p>“It does matter,” Bill argues. “Tell me what I’ll be fighting for, Mikey. What we’ll all be fighting for.”</p><p>Mike had fantasized, deliberated, rehearsed ways to persuade his friends to come back, and Bill gives <em>this</em> as his reason to fight. “I haven’t put much thought into what I could do after this is done. Been a bit busy.”</p><p>“Would you want to go to DC, be an investigator? Nah, you probably… oh, what about joining a football team? Or an orchestra? Didn’t you play—what was it. Trumpet?”</p><p>“Trombone. Haven’t touched one of those since junior year. Or a football for that matter.” Mike chuckles at the odd crumbs that Bill recalled. “I guess I’d want to see what I’m missing. If I’m missing anything at all. I’m not exactly a fountain of knowledge when it comes to the world outside of this town.”</p><p>Bill makes a neutral noise. “You’ll find out for yourself soon enough about what’s outside of Derry. That much I can tell you.”</p><p>Mike nods to himself, resolute. They always listen to Bill.</p><p>.</p><p>Mike gets to Bassey Park half an hour early, but he’s not the first to arrive. He spots Eddie and Richie at the end of a sidewalk, engaged in a staring contest of sorts.</p><p>He observes them from afar, weighing his options. He’d waited so long for this, but a part of him suspects that he’d be intruding if he comes up to them now.</p><p>“Is it possible for deja vu to be drawn out over thirty years?”</p><p>Mike turns around and breaks into a grin. “Stan. It’s really—you made it!” He holds back from accosting Stan with physical affection, cognizant of the boy who had been averse to it.</p><p>Stan takes it upon himself to close the distance between them.</p><p>Once he does, Mike cocoons him, clutching his bicep and the back of his neck. He can’t recall the last time he hugged someone like this, all urgency and fierceness. Can’t place the last time <em>he’d</em> been held like this. “I’m so glad you came.”</p><p>“I’m glad you brought us back.” Stan had spent the last twenty hours running his mental simulations, proving out a conclusion he almost overlooked: they make each other better. They make each other stronger. Seven to the seventh power—you can’t argue against those numbers.</p><p>Minutes later, Ben and Beverly come join them. They can’t hand out hugs fast enough.</p><p>“Richie and Eddie are here, too.” Mike cocks his head in their direction.</p><p>Beverly looks over and her mouth drops, intrigued. “Good call not to get in the middle of that. I say we wait ‘til one of them does the kiss lean, <em>then</em> we show up next to them.” She feels silly and teenaged. Unrestrained. The way coming home is supposed to feel like.</p><p>“No way that’s happening,” Stan guarantees. “I don’t care how old we are now. Can you imagine any version of Richie and Eddie properly dealing with their feelings?”</p><p>“We should leave them alone, either way,” Ben says, shy of reproachful thanks to his sentimental expression. “Bill’s probably waiting for us at the cafe.”</p><p>As they slip past their preoccupied friends, Beverly nudges Ben with the side of her elbow. “So you know, if Richie and Eddie get arrested for public indecency, you’re in charge of bailing them out.”</p><p>Ben waves her off, laughing. “We’ll be fine. We’ve faced much worse than the Derry police. They’ve got nothing on us.”</p><p>.</p><p>“Do you think we can do this?”</p><p>“So, I can give you the answer that’ll jinx us, or I can give you the one that’ll piss you off. Not very sporting of you to set a trap like this, Eds.”</p><p>Eddie refills his lungs and clarifies, “I’m not talking about the clown.”</p><p>“What are you talking about?” Richie asks with more bravado than he feels.</p><p>He takes another thorough inhale. “I’m getting divorced.”</p><p>“…What?”</p><p>“When I heard you on the phone, something came back to me. Before I even remembered what you <em>looked like</em>. And I knew I had to leave my wife before I could… come to you with anything.”</p><p>“Okay,” Richie gets out.</p><p>Eddie swallows around the lump in his throat. “I still can’t talk about it, not here. But I will once this is over. It might come out of left field and—and maybe it’ll border on delusional, given all the time we’ve spent apart. I know, when we were younger, I was gullible even for my age—”</p><p>“Hey!” Richie will not stand for this slander.</p><p>“—and there are days when I can’t say I’ve outgrown that.” Belatedly, Eddie pauses for air. “But I know it’s real. So you have to believe me when I do say it.”</p><p>Debilitated, Richie goes on autopilot. “I take it you’re finally gonna admit to liking the nicknames.”</p><p>Eddie’s lips twitch like a livewire. “Dare to dream big, I guess.”</p><p>“That wasn’t a ‘no’,” Richie notes. “Cool. Hope the suspense doesn’t kill me before the clown does.”</p><p>Eddie sets his jaw. “I won’t let It hurt you.”</p><p>Richie wants to return the sentiment in kind, to tell Eddie he’ll be safe at Richie’s side. What he says is, “But you’ll let me die of curiosity.”</p><p>“You won’t d—it’ll be temporary, if anything.”</p><p>“Oh? You’ll bring me back to life? Bust out the ol’ up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A?” Richie punches the air in rapid sequence, hitting imaginary buttons on an imaginary controller.</p><p>This time, Eddie fails to suppress a peal of laughter.</p><p>There’s no shame in using cheat codes if it gets Richie those results.</p><p>.</p><p>.</p><p>.</p><p>
  <em>“Follow It! It’s not dead yet!”</em>
</p><p>“What the fuck—<em>your arm</em>—guys, we have to help Eddie!” Richie yells.</p><p>“Then help him already,” Stan berates as he strips off his suede jacket, bundling the material to cover Eddie’s lacerated limb.</p><p>“He’s hurt,” Richie moans by way of defending his paralysis.</p><p>“Yes, thanks for the update.” With his free hand, Stan strokes Eddie’s hair. “Eddie, tell us how we can help you.”</p><p>Eddie grunts, fighting to override the shock.</p><p>Stan mouths at Richie, <em>Do something.</em></p><p><em>What?!</em> Richie mouths back.</p><p>
  <em>Anything!</em>
</p><p>Richie’s first instinct is to rub off the distress warping Eddie’s face. “Come on, Eds. Don’t you remember how much you got off on roleplaying bossy Florence Nightingale?”</p><p>Despite himself, Eddie rewards Richie with the makings of a grin. When he does, it almost feels like he’s cheating on the pain. “Don’t call me Eds. You know I hate that.”</p><p>A suggestion of color returns to Eddie’s face. Stan meets Richie’s gaze and nods his encouragement.</p><p>Emboldened, Richie tries for another smile. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that. I’m afraid your memories came back a bit distorted, my teeny Spaghettini.”</p><p>Eddie snorts, gains another second wind. “Okay. Press harder on the wound. Elevate my—the site above the heart. But don’t move me too much.”</p><p>“Press harder,” Stan repeats for Richie’s benefit as he carefully maneuvers Eddie.</p><p>“I heard,” Richie retorts.</p><p>“What else, Eddie?” Stan prods. He watches Eddie’s eyelids flutter lower. “Do you think can you stay awake? Do you think you can guide us out of here like you did last time?”</p><p>Eddie nods, the top of his head coming up against Stan’s sternum. “If I bleed through the cloth, we have to compress the artery.”</p><p>Not wasting time, they fashion a tourniquet out of Stan’s handkerchief, the strap from Eddie’s headlamp, and a carabiner that came with Richie’s rental car keys. While Richie scavenges for a sturdy stick to use as a windlass, Eddie recites the number for the local ambulance service from memory, which Stan saves on his phone.</p><p>When their makeshift tourniquet is secure, Stan grips Richie’s shoulder. “Stay with Eddie. I’ll go after the others.”</p><p>Richie shakes his head and squeezes Stan’s wrist. “I’ll go. He’s better off with someone who can stay calm.” He releases Stan to cup Eddie’s face in both hands. He echoes his younger self’s battle cry: “Hey, Eddie, look at me.”</p><p>Richie holds Eddie’s gaze, as tender as his touch, while Eddie holds his breath.</p><p>Richie taps out a pattern over Eddie’s cheeks with his thumbs. <em>Up, up, down, down</em>, <em>left, right, left, right, B, A</em>.</p><p>“Really?” Eddie mutters through a raspy chuckle.</p><p>“Really. Now you’ve got extra lives. Can’t get out of that confession you promised. Soon as we’re out of here, you gotta fess up that you love it when I call you ‘Eds’.”</p><p>“I love something about it,” Eddie concedes.</p><p>“You love ‘Eds’,” Richie repeats insistently. “And you’re not the only one who does.”</p><p>Stan’s unsure whether he should be impressed or exhausted by their verbal acrobatics.</p><p>As Richie forces himself up on his feet, he tosses his jacket at Stan. “I’ll be right back, so don’t fuck up, Stan the Man.”</p><p>“I won’t if you won’t.”</p><p>Richie turns to the distant hints of ongoing clamor and rushes headlong towards it.</p><p>Stan blankets Eddie in Richie’s jacket. “How are you holding up?”</p><p>“You did good,” Eddie praises him. “Real good, Stan.”</p><p>“You can return the favor by making sure all seven of us make it out of here.”</p><p>“Yeah, I’ll guide us. I’ve got you. I just. Might need to be carried out.”</p><p>“We’ve got you,” Stan says back.</p><p>.</p><p>.</p><p>.</p><p>Eddie groans at the unexpected effort it takes to pry his clumped lashes apart.</p><p>He hears his name being chanted at him. It barely registers that the bones in his hand are nearly being pulverized by an inhumanly tight grip. As his eyesight regains functionality, he produces noises at the back of his throat that verge on Richie’s name.</p><p>Richie’s bloodshot eyes leak with aggressive relief. He heaves like he needs Eddie’s aspirator, wracked with truncated wails. Ben and Bill are on either side of him, their own cheeks stained with tear tracks.</p><p>“Eh—Eddie,” Richie breathes. “You’ve been asleep for six months.”</p><p>Eddie’s mouth drops. “Wuh—”</p><p>Bill stretches out to whap the back of Richie’s head, eliciting a wet chortle from him. “Don’t listen to him, Eddie. You were only out for a few hours.”</p><p>Eddie finds his voice specifically to complain, “You’re such a turd, Rich.”</p><p>“I’m a turd!” Richie declares with far too much jubilance.</p><p>Richie doesn’t ease up with the overdone humor as the day goes on. They don’t make anything easy for each other, after all—where’s the fun in that? Eddie would be annoyed about putting up with Richie’s brand of bullshit twenty-four seven, but the nonstop foolery only serves to accentuate Richie’s refusal to leave Eddie’s side.</p><p>That night, after the other Losers retire to their respective rooms—whether in a Bangor hotel or in other parts of the hospital—Richie plants himself on the wooden chair angled towards Eddie’s bed.</p><p>“Need a hand?” Richie offers when he sees Eddie adjusting his bed’s incline. “I’ve got one more than you do right now.” A nurse passing by levels him with a dark, disapproving look.</p><p>Eddie informs him that his bedside manner is sorely lacking, though it loses bite when it comes out thankful and—here’s the kicker—<em>enamored</em>.</p><p>“I gotta get these in while I can!” Richie says. “I only have a short window of time ‘til you’re fitted with a badass bionic limb and you’ll be able to do shit like finally win at arm wrestling.” He reaches across to cover Eddie’s hand with his own, gently resting his arm over Eddie’s stomach.</p><p>Eddie’s tempted to glance at their joined hands, but he’s trapped in the gravitational pull of Richie’s eyes. Slowly, Eddie turns his hand over, palm facing up. He bends his elbow to bring his hand up next to his head, changing the angle so that he and Richie can thread their fingers together.</p><p>Following Eddie’s lead, Richie ends up nose-to-nose with him. He nuzzles the button nose below his, not daring more than a few delicate nudges. After some time, Richie interrupts the silence. “You had something to say to me?”</p><p>“Are we doing this now?” Eddie asks, as if he had no part in the compromising position they’re currently in.</p><p>“Missed our chance to do it in front of an audience at the park. Or at the sewers with Stan hovering over you.”</p><p>They’ve missed any number of chances by now. Like the night under the stars in the back of Richie’s truck, before their lives would take a drastic turn. Or that inconsequential Tuesday afternoon when Eddie carefully placed Richie’s glasses back over his face, oblivious to how Richie gaped at his collarbones all the while.</p><p>The word “almost” has dangled between them for three decades. It’s stretched out thin enough that it might succumb to one last courageous tug.</p><p>Eddie tilts his head up.</p><p>Short giddy breaths are drawn in tandem, a slow-motion choreography. They mingle and compress, compress and expand. They mingle again, and finally—“almost” overextends and cracks and yields and “almost” turns into—finally, <em>finally</em> they merge.</p><p>Mouths seal over the shape of each other’s smiles. Heads tilt to accommodate awed gasps. Lips impress bruises and teeth marks and heartbeats.</p><p>Richie doesn’t pull back too far, staying close enough for Eddie to keep breathing him in. It doesn’t take long for Richie to hurtle forward and claim another kiss, for both of them to claim earnestness and emphasis.</p><p>Words will come later when they become too much to contain—three small words weighted with every detail of a bond that stood the test of time.</p><p>And now, the scariest thing is that time won’t be enough. Whatever they get—another week, another ten months, another fifty years—it won’t be enough. But then, that doesn’t matter nearly as much as knowing that whatever they get, it’ll be worth the wait.</p><p>.</p><p>Mike gets a call at the library.</p><p>He holds the phone between himself and Beverly so that she can see it too. She and Stan have been taking turns keeping him company. Beverly learned to tolerate Mike’s place of work despite not carrying a single Kay McCall book, and in return, Mike forgave her propensity for audiobooks.</p><p>On Mike’s screen, Bill relays the news that Eddie is cleared to leave the hospital. On cue, there’s celebratory cheering in the background from Ben, Richie, and Stan. Richie starts a call-and-response that Ben is alone in humoring. It comes to an end when Ben refuses to repeat a phrase about how <em>disarming</em> Eddie is.</p><p>Bill pans to Eddie, who’s propped up on his hospital bed, radiating with new life. He carries himself differently as Stan and Ben’s blood course through his veins, alongside his own.</p><p>Everyone has their own share of wear and tear, from Bill’s sprained ankle to Ben’s torn rotator cuff. But even without injuries to slow them down, no one’s in a hurry to leave.</p><p>In the meantime, they’ve got reservations at Jade of the Orient to look forward to.</p><p>Mike can hardly wait to show up at Derry’s finest establishment in their current state. A gang of forty-year-olds smothered in bruises, donning gauze headbands, prostheses, and crutches.</p><p>He’ll ask one of the waitstaff to take a photo of them. Stan will go along with it, despite his misgivings.</p><p>What a picture they’ll make. A team of not-quite-losers, wearing evidence of the uphill battle they overcame. Seven people in the process of healing—mending their broken parts on their own but recovering together.</p><p>Beyond those dinner plans, Mike’s calendar is open. Right now, he’s fielding multiple offers of available guestrooms around the country. He likes the idea of plotting out a route that covers all the new places that his friends call home.</p><p>The only question is, how will he pick his first destination?</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you for sticking to the end! Stay safe, and I hope you find comfort in the thought that we are not in the Darkest Timeline... I think.</p><p>&amp; on that note, <a href="http://criticalresistance.org/abolish-policing/">defund the police and prisons</a></p></blockquote></div></div>
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